Look, I did two test commutes and although I'm not a civil guy I'll tell you for nothing that Greenbank was never designed in anticipation of that amount of commuter traffic. I read many news articles about residents in revolt against the city council because the Barrhaven developers are being allowed to put up endless housing on 30 foot wide lots, and it is getting worse every year. That place was never designed/engineered/planned, it was supposed to be a racetrack and the developer couldn't make it work, so he put up housing instead. It is a textbook example of poor urban planning.
I visited a few townhomes for sale there from two builders, and put an inclinometer on the walls. There was not a single 90 degree angle in these units, everything up to 5 degrees out of square. It is not high quality housing from my perspective.
As far as I can tell, the whole urban planning concept in Ottawa has failed. The greenbelt was supposed to concentrate development. What has happened is endless sprawl with people commuting 2 hours a day. It did not really work for anybody. I would not be surprised if Ottawa performed near the bottom of similar population centres in terms of passenger vehicle emissions. If they had done it right, they would not have to debt-finance 20 kilometre rail alignments to bedroom communities And I think those projects are in a lot of jeopardy now, may not be built at all.
I visited a few townhomes for sale there from two builders, and put an inclinometer on the walls. There was not a single 90 degree angle in these units, everything up to 5 degrees out of square. It is not high quality housing from my perspective.
As far as I can tell, the whole urban planning concept in Ottawa has failed. The greenbelt was supposed to concentrate development. What has happened is endless sprawl with people commuting 2 hours a day. It did not really work for anybody. I would not be surprised if Ottawa performed near the bottom of similar population centres in terms of passenger vehicle emissions. If they had done it right, they would not have to debt-finance 20 kilometre rail alignments to bedroom communities And I think those projects are in a lot of jeopardy now, may not be built at all.